Twee maskers voor gebouw en rotsen (schets) before 1936

Leo Gestel created this sketch called 'Two Masks for Building and Rocks' using pen and India ink, sometime in the early 20th century. Gestel was a Dutch artist whose career spanned both world wars, a time of immense social and political upheaval. Consider the mask, an object that conceals and reveals. Masks have long been used to transform identities, allowing wearers to explore different aspects of themselves or to embody archetypes. What might it mean to place a mask on a building, or on a rock? Is it an attempt to animate the inanimate, to find a human presence in the cold structures of modernity or in the indifferent face of nature? Gestel lived through a period of rapid change and increasing uncertainty. The mask, then, becomes a powerful symbol for the ways individuals and societies grapple with shifting identities and the search for meaning in a complex world. This image invites us to contemplate the hidden faces of the world around us, and perhaps, our own hidden faces as well.